The Future's Like A Corpse In Snow
by Sezstar
Summary: When HP and SS are trapped together with an hour to live certain revelations come to light. Once they escape how do they cope with the consequences of this and the shadows that have fallen across their lives?


TITLE:   The Future's Like A Corpse In Snow

A/N:  Thank you very much to Laura Beth for really, really improving, cutting and just generally making this readable!  I suppose the main inspiration comes from Reive's Snape/Hermione story "A Certain Education" and Minx's series of Snape/Harry stories.  Two more different things you could not get, but hey!  The title is a line from a Manic Street Preachers song called Condemned To Rock 'N' Roll.  Shite title I know, but great line!

  Also dedicated to Steven Bentley, you though I never did, but I always understood.    

Warning!  Contains references to self-abuse and bereavement!  But this is a story with both light and shade.  Is hovering on the NC17 boundary, but  you lot don't really mind that do you?

Please review!  An awful lot went into this.

The Future's Like A Corpse In Snow

By 

Sezstar 

Tick, Tock.  Tick, Tock.  Tick, Tock.  

The clock ticked.  The last hour, minutes, seconds, of Severus Snape's life began to tick by.  

The clock ticked.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.  He had envisioned his death over and over again as the years had crawled by, but he had never thought he would be given a last hour to just wait...

He hadn't envisioned Potter as his companion either.

But there the boy was, frantically pacing up and down the cell.  Randomly tapping stones, pulling at the bars on the tiny window, muttering spells in an effort to get them out of there.

Snape didn't bother.  They were in Malfoy's dungeon, there was no way out, hell he had helped make sure of that all those year ago.  The irony was not lost on him now.

He watched Potter under heavy lidded eyes and settled back in the dirty straw on the floor, to wait, to listen to the ticking clock that was going so damn fast!

"Well aren't you going to help?"  The boy was staring at him furiously and chewing on his knuckles.

"There's no point.  We're stuck till," he waved a hand at the clock, "that finishes."

"I can't believe that!  There must be a way out!"

"Believe me there isn't."

"But…"  The boy looked round and slid slowly down the opposite wall onto the damp floor.

"I don't want to die."

Snape just rolled his eyes and ignored the gnawing in his guts and the boy curled up on the floor opposite him with his face buried in his knees.

Truth be told, and this realisation did amaze him, now he was actually here and going to be dead, in forty nine minuets and seven seconds exactly, he didn't want to be.  He hadn't realised how much he wanted to grasp hold of life, of the shreds of it he had left, if he got out of here things would change, his life would change!

But there was no point in dealing with ifs.

He heard Potter scuttle across the floor to his side and crouch in the straw next to him.  The boy's familiar scent was masked by the damp foul smell in the cell, but he could still just smell him, the shampoo he used, the scent of sweat and blood.  

He leant away, and refused to give into the constant temptation to look or touch the boy.  Who was just that, a boy.

"What will they do to us?"  The terrified whisper couldn't drown out the ticking clock.

Snape didn't answer straight away.  He just watched the second hand tick by.

Forty seven minuets and seventeen seconds.

"They'll torture us first, won't they?"

Snape heard the defiance in his voice and turned round to look at Potter.  He was sitting up and staring at Snape.  The pointless boldness in those green eyes made something in Snape's heart give.

"Yes."  He couldn't think of anything else to say.  What possible comfort could he give?  And what could possibly comfort him?

"I don't want to die."

He looked back up at Potter and, to his surprise, heard the words escaping his mouth,

"Neither do I." 

Potter gave a small smile and his eyes glimmered strangely.  Snape had to turn away.

"That fucking clock's too loud!"  Potter leapt up and ran across the room to the clock hanging on the wall.   

"Shut up!  Shut up!  Shut up!"  Snape watched him trying to hit it, to smash it and make it stop.  But every time his fist bounced harmlessly away.

"It won't work."

Potter kicked the wall then and yelped in pain.

Snape watched and realised he had forgotten to apologise to Hagrid for kicking over the paint tin he was decorating his cottage with.  He had meant to, just never got round to it.  Now he never would.  

He watched Potter. He was leaning against the wall.  His forehead was pressed against the stone and his shoulders were shaking.  His shirt was ripped and Snape could see a dark bruise spreading over the white skin.  It would hurt to lie on.  Not that that really mattered now.

Forty four minutes and thirty three seconds.

Potter turned back round and wiped a hand across his face.  Funny really, how he'd come to want the boy so much it was a constant ache in his chest.  The amount of time he'd spent fantasying, lusting, and hating.  It all seemed slightly trivial now.  

"I've heard, rumours, about some of what the Death Eaters do.  To their, captives.  That they, they, rape…"  His voice drifted away.  He opened his eyes and looked straight at Snape.  His face looked twisted, hopeful, begging to be told it wasn't true.

Snape wasn't sure what to say.  Lie and see that face crack into some sort of relief.  Tell the truth and watch him become more of a wreck?  

"You've hesitated too long.  It's true isn't it?  They'll do it to us."

Snape found his voice from somewhere.

"It's not about sex, or desire.  It's about power.  Power and an insult."

Potter's eyes shut.  Then he began to laugh.  A black, sick laugh that sounded alien to Snape.  It was a very old laugh that didn't belong in the mouth of the boy in front of him.

"What's so funny?"

Potter collapsed down in the filthy straw and looked up at him.

"The irony.  The bloody, fucking, insane irony."

"You've cracked."

"No, I haven't.  All this time I've spent trying to find a bloke to sleep with, and I finally do, and…"  He waved his hand around the cell.  

Snape just stared at him.  Then said in amazement,

"You're gay?"

"Yup!"  Potter was laughing again, the kind of laugh that you have to laugh because if you stop, the laughter will turn to hysterical tears.

And then Snape began to laugh too.  Because, it was so unbearably ironic.  This, all this, everything.

"What are you laughing at?"

"The irony!  All this time I've spent wishing you were gay, desiring you and being jealous of the girls who hung around you, and I should have been jealous of the boys!"  

It didn't matter telling him.  They were both going to be dead in, oh, thirty nine minutes and fourteen seconds.

Potter had stopped laughing.

"You really wanted me?"

"Yes."

"You don't bloody show it!"

"Well I can't can I!  Doesn't really matter now of course."

"I suppose not."

Potter leant back against the wall. And began to laugh softly again.

"Sirus would kill you."

"I know."

Neither knew why they were laughing anymore.  It was a real, human, living sound that filled the dank room.  Now, here, in this moment they were alive.

The laughter drifted away.  Snape glanced at Harry.  He was playing with some straw, curling it round his fingers.  What was he thinking?  He hadn't been as repulsed as Snape expected, but there was clearly no reciprocation.  Not that he had expected there to be.

"Thank you for telling me."  Harry glanced up at Snape and smiled, "I always wondered why you were so cruel to me."

"I didn't like you when you were eleven!"

"I hope not!"

Silence settled again.

Snape ran the conversation back through his head and suddenly hit a sentence.  Oh bloody, fucking, Christ no!

"Harry?"  He didn't even realise he'd used the boy's first name.

"Yes."

"What you said, about looking for a man to sleep with, did you ever find that?"

"How's that your business!"

Snape reached over and grabbed Harry's wrist so hard his nails broke the skin.

"Just tell me!"

"Well, no, oh God…"  And he saw the shocked realisation dawn on the boy's face.  "They wouldn't!"  Harry leaned over and grabbed Snape's shoulders.  "Tell me they wouldn't!"

But the words couldn't form in Snape's mouth and he just looked at the boy's desperate face.

Virginity magic.  Old as time and mocked now.  But mocked for a reason.  Sex had been demystified in the Wizarding world so that the mysteries surrounding virginity magic would stop.  It could a gift to both parties, if given willingly.  Or it could be a tool, involving the complete annihilation of the unfortunate virgin involved.  

Snape would rather suffer a week of Cruciatus than the curse that would probably be used on Harry in, thirty one minutes and forty one seconds.

Harry had leapt up and was frantically pacing over the floor.  His eyes were burning and afraid, and he kept walking through the one patch of light from the window.  The shadows from the bars rippled across his face.

"You!"

"What?" Snape looked up confused.

"You can do it!  You can!  You said you wanted me, you can have me, quickly, now, before they come, so they can't!"

"No!"

"You have to, you must!"  Harry flung himself in front of Snape.  There were tears welling up in his eyes and he was trembling.

"I can't."

"You must!"

"You don't want me."

"Well no, but it would be better than the alternative!"

Snape sat up abruptly and walked over to the other side of the room.  Harry Potter throwing himself at his feet and offering himself to him.  That didn't happen.  Well in his mind it had happened a thousand times.  He closed his eyes and remembered the fantasies and the dreams and the painful arousal…  

He swept around and stared at the boy crouching back in the straw.  The real thing, not a fantasy, but real and breathing and warm and alive!  Yes it was wrong, but oh to die so happy…  He took a few steps towards him, and Harry automatically recoiled back, his hands clenching in the straw.

And Snape stopped.  Looked at the straw covered in filth.  Looked at the walls with the water dripping down them.  Looked at the floor, stained with unidentifiable fluids.  The boy was clearly terrified and preparing himself to hate everything that was about to happen to him.  Not enough time to go slowly.  Nothing to use as lubricant apart from spit and the slime on the walls.  Sordid, dirty, filthy, and foul.  Like virtually every other experience of his entire life.  Wrong.  On every level wrong.  But better than the alternative.  There were silent tears running down Harry's cheeks, leaving tracks in the dirt.

"What's stopping you?  You said you wanted me."  His voice was trembling.

"Not like this!"  The words were out before he could stop them.

Harry stood up and walked shakily across the room.  He reached out a hand and touched Snape's bruised cheek.  He ran his finger across one of the cuts that was filled with crusted blood.

"I…"

But he didn't get any further.

"Harry?  Snape?  Stand back from the door quickly!"

Black's voice.  And then an explosion that seemed to blossom out of the door, the flash appearing just before the sound, and the force that knocked them both to the floor.  And Snape remembered the kicking that had bruised his ribs and torso.  The sudden cold floor seemed to vibrate and he hit his head hard.

He couldn't move.

"Don't move Severus."  Lupin's voice.

He opened his eyes, and blinked to clear the after glow of the explosion on his retina.  Sirus had his arms round Harry who was sobbing hopelessly onto his shoulder.  

All he could hear was Harry's tears, no ticking.  He looked up and saw the clock had frozen as the door exploded.  Twenty minutes and four seconds.

Then all he felt was Lupin's cold hand on his forehead and total oblivion.

It was two weeks later.  Harry Potter was sitting by the lake watching the October clouds chase themselves across the sky.  Everyone had noticed the difference in him since he had been captured.  His friends and teachers tip toed round him, but he didn't realise.  He seemed numb to the world and to any attempts to jolly him up.  

His entire world had been reordered and changed, and none of them understood.  Oddly, whenever he thought that, he heard Snape's voice in his head telling him that lots of people had survived worse.  Not that Snape had said that, he just thought that he probably would.

He was horrified to realise he was starting to become slightly obsessed by Snape.  That he was actually starting to, well, he wasn't sure.  Just knew that he watched for him wherever he was around and played some of the moments in the dungeon over and over again.  Like the moment Snape had turned, and the desire on his face had been so fierce, so burning.  No one had ever looked at him like that before, like he was the centre of the entire world.  And then the shattering, and the, tender, Snape being tender!  Or maybe it was tragic?  He didn't know.  He couldn't think.

He realised someone was sitting next to him and he glanced up.  Lupin was sitting there and watching him cautiously.  

"Chilly day."

"Yes."

"So, Harry, I have come with advice."

"Advice for what?"

"Be more discreet when you're gazing at Snape.  Sirus is beginning to notice, it's unpleasant."

Harry spun round and yelled,

"What!"

Remus looked at him gently.

"Want to talk?"

"No."

"Might help."

"There's nothing to say."

"Oh there is.  You see I can sense how you're reacting to him, and anyone with the huge amount of jumbled pain and emotions in your head needs to talk."

"I…  I don't even know where to start!"

Remus nodded and shrugged.

"That's alright."   

"I…  I do hate him!  Sort of, well I don't.  There is no way of forgetting what a bastard he was to us.  For years, I mean this is my last year, but he was so cruel to us!  And well, he got you sacked, he is not a nice man."

Remus shifted and started pulling up the grass.

"He didn't exactly get me sacked."

"He did!  He told all the Slytherins about you!"

"Well yes, but…"  Remus drew his legs up to his chin and rubbed dirt between his fingers.

"I resigned, and Dumbledore made no attempt to keep me.  The worse thing I think I have ever done was not to confess I knew Sirus was an animagus."  

"No!  I mean he wasn't guilty!"

"We didn't know that then!  For God's sake Harry!  Dumbledore employ's an ex-Death Eater and a half giant!  Do you really think he wouldn't defend a werewolf's reputation?"

"Oh."

"Severus isn't entirely to blame there."

"He was still horrible to us."

"Granted."

They sat in silence.  The wind whipped up little waves on the lake.

"I saw something different in him.  Before we were captured, when he realised we were trapped.  He didn't break down, he didn't panic.  He seemed, brave I guess."

"He is certainly that."

"I was so impressed.  He was a different man.  A man I could like, a lot, I think."

Remus nodded, and Harry closed his eyes, it was so hard to think, to separate the layers of confusion in his mind.

"You can't tell Sirus the next bit."

"I won't tell him any of this."

"I sort of, I realised the Death Eaters, they rape…"  He couldn't go on and felt a hand very carefully rest on his shoulder.

"I sort of cracked, we talked.  I sort of said I was gay, he sort of said he liked me."

"Oh."

"I, it was just he was, we were going to die in a few minutes you know."

Remus nodded.  Harry could still remember the smell in the place.  The dank, damp, rotten smell.  It had felt like it was decaying.  He woke up dreaming of it some nights.  All too often.

"You know the spells on virgins…"

"Oh God!"  Remus leaned over him, "You didn't!"

"No.  But I offered, it would have been better than that…  I still know it would have been better than that…

"When I first, said, he looked at me like…"  Harry waved a hand, still unable to describe the look on Snape's face.  That utterly possessing and consuming look.  

"You know that look, like I was the only thing in the world, like he was on fire…  You know that look?"

Remus turned towards Hagrid's hut where a black dog was basking in the sun.

"Yes."

"No one has ever, ever, looked at me like that before."  And every night I remember, and every night I want him to look at me like that again.  Everything he didn't say.

"It is, intoxicating, when someone does."  Remus's gaze was still focused on the dog.

Harry almost smiled and nodded.

"But then you see, he seemed to realise where we were, what he was doing, how much I didn't want it.  And he stopped."  Harry knew his voice was trembling and he tried to focus on the bulrushes at the edge of the lake.  Anything other than the memories of the look on Snape's face.

"I keep remembering that.  He looked so hurt…  It hurts me to remember."

Remus stared at him for a long time and then said slowly,

"Maybe it's like that syndrome, I can't remember the name, where kidnap victims fall for their captors."

"I thought of that.  It may be.  I don't know.  I don't know anything!"

He stood up and stalked down to the lake, kicking stones.  Remus came and stood next to him.  He said quietly,

"No one does Harry.  No one does."

They watched the waves plough endlessly and pointlessly for a few minutes before Harry walked away.

In the end it was Hermione, fed up of Harry moping who yelled at him, 

"Just talk to him, get to know him, just cheer up!"

So that was Harry's new plan.  Get to know Snape.

He went down the dungeons one evening in the middle of October.  It had been a horrible day with a vicious wind that kept everyone inside.  He knocked on Snape's door.

"What do you want?"

Now that was a question.

"To talk."

"I have nothing to say."

"Then I'll talk."

"I don't care what your misguided Gryffindor honesty may have you believe, but I prefer not to discuss things that have no benefit to either party."

Harry slipped past him and into his room.  He heard Snape groan and walked over to the chair by the flickering fire and sat down.  Snape didn't sit but lent against the bookcase with a bored expression on his face.

"Well?"

Harry realised that now he was here he had no idea what to say.

"I'm waiting."

"Do you dream of it?"  Where the hell had that come from? 

Snape looked surprised and walked cautiously to the other chair. 

"No."

"I think you're lying."

Snape shrugged as though to show he really didn't care what Harry thought.

"I'm here cos, well, because I want to get to know you."  The last words came out in a rush and he gripped the arms of the chair.

"You want what?"  Snape was staring at him in astonishment, and Harry felt a perverse jolt of pleasure for managing to baffle Snape.

"You see I saw someone, that day, who I like, but who confuses me.  And I want to know you more, so I can see if I can like you more."

Snape just stared more and then laughed bitterly.

"Fuck off Potter.  Just go away, I don't know what new heroic picture of me you've managed to draw, but I assure you it isn't true!"

"I think it is!"  Harry leapt up and moved to the other chair, sitting on the arm.  Snape instantly recoiled back, but Harry grabbed his arm.  The other man froze and stared at Harry.  Harry reached out his hand and leaned over to stroke the other man's cheek, an echo of the dungeon.

"I like you.  I want you to let me like you more."

"I can give you nothing."

"You didn't want touch me, when you realised what you were doing.  You care for me, you don't just want to fuck me."

"You assume wrongly.  Lust and love are a million miles from each other."

"If you didn't care you wouldn't have stopped."

They stopped talking and looked warily at each other.

"When I said I can give you nothing I meant it."

"We'll see."

Harry leant down suddenly and pressed his lips against Snape's.  The other man didn't respond at all, but Harry wrapped his arms round Snape's neck and tried to open his lips.  He felt hands gently push him away, and then Snape kissed him very, very lightly.  He pulled back and touched Harry's cheek.

"Go away."

"I'll come tomorrow shall I?"

"No."

He came anyway.

"I think I've discovered why you claim to be attracted to me."

Harry sat back in what had to be the most uncomfortable chair in Snape's apartments.  His hands tightened on the cup of tea that had been unceremoniously thrust at him, although he supposed being given a drink was a sign of progress.

Snape was leaning back on the chaise longue, not exactly reclining or relaxing, but more the very tired posture of someone who has had a very bad day and is trying to preserve some dignity, but is just too tired to bother.

"Oh?"

Snape leaned forward and jabbed a finger in Harry's direction.

"You only respond to cruelty, I assure you it's a character flaw."

Harry shifted trying to become comfortable.  The murky surface of the tea unfortunately didn't hold any response to this bizarre statement.  

"I don't agree."

Snape smiled smugly.  

"I didn't think you would, let me elaborate…"

Harry cut in, "Can I change seats?"

"Why?"

"I don't think I've ever come across a more uncomfortable chair, and I think your explanation is going to be a long one."

Snape scowled.

"That chair is over three hundred years old."

"So?  There's a reason sofas are more popular now."

Snape's eyes narrowed, and Harry had the strange feeling he'd just passed a test.  The other man waved lazily at one of the squashy armchairs by the fire.  Harry sunk into the one opposite Snape.  It felt gorgeous.         

"Lets hear this then."

Snape swung one of his legs up onto the chaise longue, and Harry felt his mouth go dry.  It was such an unconsciously inviting gesture.

"You were brought up by a group of Muggles who treated you like dirt."

"Can't be denied!"  Harry spoke with forced cheeriness.  

Something flickered in the depths of Snape's eyes, but it died so quickly that Harry assumed it must have been the fire.  He didn't notice Snape's knuckles going white as his hand tightened on his glass.

"Your earliest reactions, sensations, everything, are attuned to respond to violence or the threat of it.  It is impossible that this has not affected your sexuality in some way."

Harry stared back in to the tea, and then at Snape.  He felt frozen by how chilled and uncaring the man's voice was.  Snape was looking at a moth fluttering round a lamp, he didn't seem aware that Harry was even there.  He fought the impulse to go over and wave his hand in front of the man's face.

"So therefore you begin to react to a person who has always treated you cruelly.  This reaction is triggered by the aggressive and," here Snape's voice seemed to struggle, "undoubtedly painful way I would have had to," his was definitely having trouble with the words now. "Take you."

Harry breathed out and tried to frame a response.  Unfortunately, for all he thought Snape was wrong, he wasn't sure whether he was entirely wrong.

Snape seemed to take Harry's silence for agreement and sighed.

"So you see you can't be with me.  You need to learn to react to kindness, love, trust," he spat out the words like they were insults.  "Being with me, in any sense would only reinforce the pattern of abuse."  

His eyes focused on the moth and he murmured something Harry didn't catch.  The moth froze and then exploded into a tiny fire ball.  They both watched the collection of ash float down to the desk top and settle into a tiny pile.  Harry couldn't stop his voice trembling as he said,

"I don't agree."

"I didn't think you would."

Harry leaned forward and smiled at Snape.  The other man turned and looked at him.  Harry wanted to drop his eyes from the intense glare, but couldn't look away.  He moved forward quietly knelt in front of Snape.  He carefully raised his fingers to the other man's face, but Snape swatted them away.

"I keep remembering the nobility you showed."

"Oh please!"  Snape looked disgusted.

"No really, when you realised we were lost, you acted better than I did."

Snape shrugged.

"That wasn't nobility it was pride, I wasn't going to let Lucius humiliate me."

"You really hate him don't you?"

"If only it was so simple."  Snape eyes clouded and he snapped at Harry suddenly.

"And that is why we can't be together.  You are still a child who sees things in black and white, good and evil.  Yes I hate Lucius, but he's also one of the best friends I've ever had, and I love his son for his sake."

He grabbed Harry's neck hard and twisted his face up to his.

"Nothing is simple!"

"I know!  I know that!  I was kept in a cupboard under the stairs for eleven years by people who were also law abiding and respectable.  They clearly loved each other and adored their son!  They were vicious, hypocritical and petty, but they were also the stereotypical 'good citizens'.  I know all about shades of grey!"

"You have no conception!"

"I do!"  

He wrenched himself away from Snape's grip, and his hand fluttered up to the bruises appearing on his neck.

"I don't want you to grab my neck and hurt me.  I don't want you to treat me like you do in class.  I get no perverse pleasure from that.  I started reacting to the bravery in you.  I remember how you looked at me…"

His voice trailed off and he couldn't carry on, couldn't convey that look.  Snape was watching him with his usual inscrutable expression, but when their eyes met, they caught fire and his hand snaked its way into Harry's hair, and Harry wasn't sure whether he was going to kiss him or hit him.  But he did neither.  He sat up, drew his wand from his pocket and slowly touched it to the red marks on Harry's neck.  

Harry felt the magic sizzle through him. The touch was ever so gentle and seemed to both soothe and set fire to his skin at the same time.  All the blood in his body seemed to be rushing straight to his cock, and he tried to concentrate on Snape's hand that was still cupping the back of his head, the fingers gently pulling at his hair.

"Please…"  He wasn't sure what he was asking for.

"Open your eyes."  Snape's velvet voice slid out of the darkness.

He did and blinked at the sudden light, but then Snape's face seemed to fill his entire vision.

"Never, ever, beg in front of someone unless you trust them completely.  Understand?  It is too easily abused."

Harry nodded dumbly and moaned when Snape took his hands away.

For a moment they just stared, and Harry leaned forward to catch the other man's mouth with his own, but Snape pulled away and murmured,  

"Go."

"I'll come back tomorrow.

"No."

When Harry had left Snape slammed the door and fell against the wall, pressing his forehead into the stone.  Oh God, he had nearly kissed him, nearly…  What the fuck was he thinking?  Doing?  No one had the fucking right to be so vulnerable and strong at the same time!  To be so, so compelling!

He dropped his hand to his crotch and grabbed his erection.  Masturbation, the only safe way.  The only way not to get hurt.  The only way not to hurt.  The only way to get any kind of release, now he was denied his two old outlets.

They were both a torture, one was a constant temptation not to give in to.  The other, a constant reminder of why he could never, ever kiss Harry Potter.

Cold, hard flesh.  Filthy mattresses stained with blood and semen.  Polystyrene boxes with congealed Chinese takeaway inside.  Grubby, torn fivers handed over in exchange for a release.  Never look in their eyes and see the hate and despair.  Ignore the sounds the of fucking from the room next door.  Watch out for the needles that litter the bed sit floor.  Ignore the cries of pain.  Get home and drink potions because there is no way these boys are clean. Wait to see how long you can get away with letting the blood soak the shirt.

The sudden rush of images made him retch, and he staggered to the bathroom, trying to not vomit.  He collapsed on the floor and pressed his cheek against the cold, porcelain, toilet seat.

Sex and self abuse.  Ironically the only two reasons he was still alive.  Ironic because most of those whores had probably died in the Black Death Aids epidemic.  Ironic because of how often he had only just missed a vein.

He rolled up his sleeve and looked at the criss-crossing scars.  All old now, all faded, he hadn't done it in years.  Oh so tempting of course, but it was a spiral, as surely as drugs and alcohol were, if you gave in once you were in the back in the downwards spiral.  It was not an impulse that could be controlled.  

Sex and self abuse.  The only release he had had in those four agonisingly numb years as Dumbledore's spy.  The only way he had been able to survive.  The full extent of the damage had only become clear after Voldemort had fallen.

He dragged himself up and pulled his knees up to his chest, it was a heartbreakingly childlike pose of vulnerability.  He couldn't show the physical scars to a child like Harry Potter, he could imagine the look of disgust that would spread over the boy's face as he looked at the torn torso, arms and thighs.

The scars the sex had left were even deeper.  His few attempts to have sex since that time had all been abject failures.  He could no longer associate sex in his mind with love, compassion, trust or any of those lying, twisted words.  It only brought about images of deceit and memories of pain.  The flashbacks made him vomit.  He had never even been in the boy's changing to room to congratulate Slytherin after a win, the urge to rip himself to pieces and throw up was automatically stirred by the sight of naked flesh.

And in all this time only Harry had successfully navigated his way round the barricades to make Snape actually desire him with almost painful bolts of want and need.

Snape had been horrified to realise he actually liked the boy.

But he couldn't take him to his bed.

He walked shakily back into the sitting room and looked around.  He could sense Harry's presence, it seemed to have imprinted itself on the room.  

But without him there the place seemed cold.  It seemed like the life had been sucked out of it.

Harry was sitting in the hall, picking at his dinner.  It really didn't interest him though, far more interesting was the way Snape was eating his.  Snape eating was sexy, sensual.  The people sitting around him noticed him staring.  They'd been noticing for the past few weeks.  Up at the staff table several of the teachers noticed.  Snape pretended not to notice and carried on eating.  He risked a look at the end of the meal and their gazes locked.  The air between them burnt.  Lots of people noticed.

"Can I call you Severus?"

"No."

They were walking through Hogsmeade.  Snape had walked out of the Three Broomsticks as soon as Harry had walked in.  Harry had run straight back out after him.  Ron and Hermione groaned and swore they were going to give Harry a talk about subtly as the barrage of questions hit them.

"Why not?"

"Because, imbecile, I am a teacher, you are a pupil.  You are supposed to offer me respect.  Therefore you call me by my title and surname.  You are entitled to no respect so I call you what I like."

"I think of you as Severus in my head."

"That's nice.  I think of you as the Annoying-Brat-Who-Won't-Leave-Me-alone."

It wasn't a vicious argument.  They were just sparring, as they had been doing for the past three weeks whenever Harry came down to the dungeons.  It was, to Severus's total horror, beginning to get comfortable.  It was possibly even enjoyable.  It had to stop.  But…

He looked down at the boy next to him.  The November wind was sharp and had turned Harry's nose pink, his eyes were also streaming and cheeks were shining.  No one in that condition had the right to look so sexy!  So desperately in need of being kissed…  And he hadn't wanted to kiss someone so hard their lips bled for so long…   

They had reached the school gates and Harry glanced up, sensing the older man's gaze.

"That look."

"What look?"

"That look, that look like you want to take me right here and now, like you want to consume me completely, like I'm the only thing in the world."

You are the only thing in the world.

And then he was trembling.  And was it because of the cold, or because Harry was reaching for his cheek and stroking it so tenderly, and then dragging his soft thumb across his lips?  What was it?  Was it because Harry was leaning up to kiss him, and he could give in just this once?

But then a gust of wine blew across them and the moment was lost.  Snape fought the rising panic just long enough to apparate and leave Harry shaking against the gates.   

"Mr Potter, have you quite finished discussing the contents of that newspaper article, on, oh lets see, the latest England Quidditch team line up?"

"Um yes Sir."

"Good, because it would be nice if you have finished dissecting this frog before the end of this lesson.  I don't want your company forced on me more than is absolutely necessary."  

That stung.  Harry tried to keep the pleading out of his face as he looked up at Snape's face.  Snape was so, so wrong.  He hated the Potions Master looking at him like that, talking to him like that.  It was the one tiny trace of compassion in the man he had sensed that had stirred him.  The growing awareness of the man's wit, intelligence and power that had developed his interest.  Not the moments when Snape looked at him with the same expression he reserved for pond slime.

Harry just had to look away, it was too painful to see the disgust.  Because of this he missed the fleeting spark of regret in the man's face.  

Harry just couldn't be bothered to work that lesson.  He had been slogging his guts out in potions lately to give the Professor fewer reasons to be cruel to him.  But after those well chosen words, words that Snape must have known were going to wound Harry's far more than any other jibe, he just couldn't care any longer.

He flicked out the frog's stomach and heart carelessly, not caring about the scrap of liver that ended up in the cauldron too.  As the potion turned to oily, brown sludge, he was aware of Snape standing behind him.

"You put in liver too didn't you?"

He sounded like he just couldn't be bothered to criticise Harry anymore.  Somehow that was worse than anger.

Harry just shrugged and looked at the floor with its grey tiles and cracks.  

"Potter.  My patience has run out.  You have detention with me tonight at seven. See me after the lesson and I will tell you the terms of it."

After the lesson Harry shifted nervously from foot to foot in front of Snape's desk.  The older man closed the door and said,

"I need help cataloguing ingredients.  As you have a strong stomach and enough intelligence to read that shall be your detention."

That was all?  Harry raised his eyes nervously to Snape's face.  The other man was looking at him expressionlessly.  But Harry could see the lines around the man's mouth were tighter than usual, a tiny betrayal of some kind of emotion.

Hope springs eternal in the young and Harry couldn't help grinning and saying,

"Yes Sir!  I'll be in your office at seven."

"You do realise how boring it will be?"

Harry just grinned and swaggered, actually swaggered out of the room.  Snape watched him hopelessly and dropped his head in his hands.  Of all the stupid things to do…  But, he had meant to snap the boy out of whatever daze he had been in.  Well he had done that alright, as the pain in Harry's eyes had shown.  He wore too many emotions on his face.  Like all Gryffindors…

He stared at Harry's seat at the back in the class.  How wonderful would it be to just curl up with him and close his eyes in that soft hair and sleep?  But he couldn't do it.  And he would explain exactly why tonight.

Well, actually he was going to be lying his head off, but it was still going to be a damn good reason!

When Harry turned up he smelt of soap and shampoo.  Ironic, preparing for decadence by cleaning himself.  Cleanliness, the opposite of sex and decadence.

Snape stopped himself musing and pointed Harry to a shelf full of decaying things in jars.  

"They all need to be cleaned out."

"And I dared to think I might have enjoyed tonight."

"You're in detention."

Harry groaned and Snape smiled to himself.  

They worked in silence, but it was comfortable, relaxing silence.  The awareness of another person in the room, but the knowledge that that person will not ask anything, or require anything.  Independence in a brainless task.

The peace was shattered when Harry backed into Snape and spun round.

"Oh, sorry."

They were so close to each other now.  Snape could see the slight blush spread over the boy's cheeks, the rise and fall of his chest, the lips parting slowly…

He traced a line over Harry's cheeks, his nose, his eyes, his forehead, his scar, his lips, his chin…  He could lean in and kiss those lips that were so anxiously waiting for him, he could!  Kissing wasn't connected to sex in his mind.  Kissing brought back images of Mathew, Remus, lost and rejected chances maybe, but still chances.  People who hadn't thought he was a lost cause.  He hadn't really kissed someone for a long time, and he hadn't forgotten the sweetness in it.

But it wouldn't be enough for Harry, it would be only a prequel to something Snape couldn't give.  It would be leading him along.  No.

He pulled away and said softly,

"This won't work."

"So you say every time.  I think it will."

"I can drag you into the Great Hall and humiliate you.  In the worst view its sadistic, but still allowable, in the best light its keeping the rebellious brat in line.  As your teacher I can rip you to shreds and no one can stop me."

"I'll just have to trust that you won't."

"It hurt you in class today."

"Yes.  But I very rarely give you any reason to do that now."

"I can't be what you want me to be."

"Shut up."

And then Harry reached up so quickly Snape couldn't react in time.  The boy's lips pressed into his and arms went round his neck.  He froze, and then gave in.  Harry's tongue found its way into his mouth and the heat built up between them so strongly Snape felt sure he was on fire.  He clutched Harry close to him and sank into the kiss that was turning his bones to liquid.  No escape, no retreat, no nothing, nothing but this heat, this fire in his blood, the man in his arms, straining, pulling, and grabbing hair, material, skin, life, alive!  The thoughts and emotions seemed to reach a pitch that couldn't be ignored and they pulled apart moaning and gasping.

Snape wasn't sure he could stand, and he slipped down onto a lab stool, dragging Harry with him, not wanting to relinquish the warm, live boy in his arms for a second.

"Won't work, my arse!  Any two people who kiss like that have to have something!" 

Harry leant forward and captured Snape's face in his hands.

"We have something.  You realised that ages ago, I just needed a bit longer."

Snape saw the nerves, the hope and the fear in the boy's eyes.  He submitted rather than leapt into the next kiss, clinging to the fragile flesh in his arms, the life he was stealing moments away from.

"Severus."  Harry buried his head in Snape's shoulder, and Snape stroked the black hair.  He had to send him away and save him from the coarse rutting that followed this tenderness, but he couldn't let him go!  Damn his wretched body!  

Harry reached up and let his lips trail over Snape's cheek, ear and chin.  

"I want to taste you everywhere."

"You can't."  That was enough for Snape to push him roughly away.

"Why?  You want me, you know you do!"  

So childlike Snape thought.  It had been easy to forget that Harry was still a child in some ways.  At seventeen he was not the master of his emotions that he believed himself to be.

"I can't be anyone's lover.  I'm sorry."

Harry swayed desperately in the middle of the room.  He opened his mouth to speak and then just shook his head.  Snape tried not to focus on his slightly open shirt that displayed the gorgeous, soft skin of his neck and chest.  

"You will be mine."

And with that the Gryffindor turned and practically ran out of the room.

Snape watched the door way he left through for a long time.  Till the familiar sense of emptiness had sunk over the room, till the coldness had reasserted itself, and till the cogs in his brain had begun to turn slowly in a different direction to normal.

Harry sat in the kitchen trying to force hot chocolate down his throat, but it seemed the lump in it was stopping any actually going down.  The house elves were bustling away in the background, but he couldn't see anything other than a pair of black eyes.  Eyes that had been far more full of pain than he suspected Snape realised.  He had betrayed something, but Harry wasn't sure what it was.

"You're out after curfew."  

Harry's head snapped round to see Lupin leaning on the fridge and smiling at him.

"I had detention with Professor Snape."

"Ah, I can see that could be a disturbing experience.  May I join you?"

Harry just waved to the seat opposite him.  Lupin slid into it and sipped at his own drink.

"There is nothing like Hogwarts chocolate."

"No."

"So?"

"So what?"

"I can smell desire, but that's mostly buried under sadness and confusion.  What happened?"

Harry stared at Lupin and then blurted out a stuttering confession of the evening.

"I just don't understand!"

Remus didn't look up for awhile then he leaned across the table and laid his hand on top of Harry's.

"If what I'm about to tell you gets out I'll hunt you down and rip your throat out understand?"

Harry breathed in sharply and nodded, Lupin's eyes were glowing, and suddenly this meek man turning into a werewolf didn't seem so bizarre.  There was a hint of something feral in them.

"When I taught here in your third year, Snape and I got," he waved his hand vaguely in the air, "involved."

Harry's mouth dropped open.

"You're not the only one to be fascinated by him.  I believe he has rather a long list of people in his past who tried to save him.  They all got rejected.  Very firmly."

Lupin was drawing patterns in the crumbs on the table top with his nails.

"I chased after him, and he constantly pulled away.  I'm not saying I was in love with him, but, he drew me to him I suppose.  Rather against his will I think.

"What I did decide was his problem lies with sex and physical desire.  Frankly I'm amazed he kissed you."

"Bloody hell."

Lupin looked amused.

"Quite.  I don't know what happened to him, or what he did.  I have no idea, I'm not sure I really want to."

Harry decided to not think about the implications of that remark.

"However, for some reason, I think you and he, have, it sounds so clichéd, but chemistry."

"I think we do too."

Remus smiled warmly.

"You would."

They stayed lost in their own thoughts for a minute and then Lupin stood up and smiled.   

"I don't view Severus as a lost cause, but I do know he is extremely difficult.  It's so easy to forget we are still young…"  His face went very dark and his eyes fluttered closed.

"Everyone in my generation, and if it doesn't stop soon yours too, carries deep scars, open wounds that have never healed.  My relationship with Sirus is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me, it is also a constant difficulty and pain."

He smiled again, and suddenly looked ten years younger.

"But its worth it!"

Harry came every night for the next few days.  Snape forced himself to let himself touch the boy, brush his hand, catch his hair between his fingers…  Little caresses that clearly meant the world to Harry, and something indefinable to him.

What was even better was that Harry seemed to understand there was a huge barrier in the way, and no longer tried to smash through it.  Snape had a slight suspicion he was trying to work his way round it.

Snape had the slight, growing sensation that Harry understood, or had at least decided to pay closer attention to the gaps between his words.

Then Seamus Finnegan died and wrecked everything.

All the Gryffindor sixth and seventh years were herded into the common room.  Harry tried to peer over Ron and Dean's heads to try and see what was going on, but he gave up and shifted about on the floor.  He had been planning on seeking down the dungeons again tonight, but he also didn't want to look suspicious, and if he ran as soon as this was finished it would look weird.  But if it ran too late…

McGonagall cleared her throat.

"I'm afraid I have some truly terrible news."

Harry's head snapped up and he pushed between Dean and Ron.

"As you know Seamus was attending his grandfather's funeral, in Ireland, this week.  We have received news that earlier today he was hit by a car and died in the ambulance.

"I am so, very sorry."

There was a shocked silence.  Harry felt his throat constrict and his hands started to shake.  Ron's face was white and his mouth had dropped open.  Dean was speaking, unable to keep the tremble out of his voice.

"Was it, was it Voldemort?"

"No."  McGonagall shook her head.  "We don't think so, it was just an accident, there is no one to blame."

No one to blame.  No one to blame!  Harry stared around, his mind spinning, what did she mean no one to blame?  It was always someone's fault, always someone to blame for everything…

Ron had wrapped his arms around Hermione who was crying softly against his chest.  Neville had his hand lightly resting against Dean's back.  Dean was just staring into space like someone had hit him.  Lavender, Seamus's girlfriend had fainted.  Harry sank down onto a chair.

Hurt.  How, how, how?  

He ran to Seamus's room and pounded the door, it opened and he staggered in, but there was no trace of him.  Even the bed sheets had been folded and cleaned since he last used them.  

He ran to his own room and grabbed the invisibility cloak, then he ran to the dungeons.

"Let me in!  Let me in now!"

The door opened and he pushed through, throwing the cloak onto the floor.

"Have you heard?  Have you fucking heard?"

Snape slowly nodded his head.  

"How?  How can this happen?"

"Harry."  Snape took a step towards him and then stopped.  "You  need a drink."

"And that will make everything all better will it?  That will bring him back?"

"No.  But it will calm you down."

Harry took the whisky that had been pushed into his hands and stared at its golden surface.

"Is it Irish?"

"No."

Harry laughed slightly hysterically as he gulped it down and then dropped the glass, coughing on the burning liquid.

Snape picked up the glass and watched Harry warily.

"I'll never see him again."

"No."

And then Harry ran into Snape's arms.  Snape folded his cloak around the trembling boy, and Harry clung to him so tightly it hurt.

"Harry, Harry, Harry…"  He whispered the boy's name as he stroked his hair.  Harry just shuddered and clung on tighter.  Snape remembered a drunken conversation with Remus a few years ago, the werewolf had said, "Death, loss, the pain never goes, the hole is never filled.  You just try to build a life around it."  So true, so true.  He held Harry tighter, maybe if he held him tight enough they would literally absorb into each other, one being of pain and loss.

"Severus."  He felt Harry's lips brushing his neck, sending little sparks across his skin.  He stiffened and opened his eyes.

"Severus."  Hands coming up to play with his hair.

"Severus."  Harry moving onto his toes so he could reach his mouth.

"Severus!"  A messy, desperate kiss that Snape felt curiously detached from.  He could feel the passion and need pouring out of the young man in his arms, but couldn't return it.  He kissed mechanically and tried to forget his own ghosts.  One in particular with auburn hair and brown eyes…

"Severus.  Please."  Ghosts of the past swirled way and he stared into the face of the present.  Green eyes that haunted his dreams, and Harry moved up to stroke his face.

"Let me stay tonight.  All night.  I need, it, you, don't make me go tonight!"

"No!"  He stepped back hurriedly and tripped slightly.  Harry caught him and clutched him tight.

"Please, I can't bear to be alone tonight.  Let me, let me stay.  I need to feel alive!"

"No, go!"  He pushed him away so hard Harry fell right back.  "Go!"

Harry stood up unsteadily and looked at him.  Snape could see him trembling, could see the tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

"Please, Severus, I'm so sorry, I…"

Sorry?  He was sorry?  Snape thought he was going to be sick.  He studied the beautiful face, the soft skin and those eyes he could lose himself in forever.  But forever was no more an option than one night was.  He couldn't do this now or ever.  

He turned his back.

He heard Harry sob behind him.

"Please!"

He didn't move.

There was a silence, and then the sound of running feet and a slamming door.  Snape sunk into his chair and dropped his head onto his arms.  Then from the fireplace came Dumbledore's voice.

"Severus?  I think it's about time we had a little chat, don't you?"

Harry stumbled blindly up the stairs and into the Gryffindor common room.  There was barely anyone there.  He ran up towards his room.  Then there was a sound from behind him.

"Harry?"  He spun round to see Colin Creevey leaning out of a door.

"Want to come in?"

Harry stared and blinked for a minuet, then followed Creevey.

It was morning.  But dark.  Morning hurt.  In fact quite a lot of things hurt.  Harry blinked at the numbers on the clock.  Six AM.  Actually the window was in the wrong place.  There was a sound next to him.  He glanced over his shoulder and gasped.

Creevey.  Naked.  Shit.  As the images and events crowded in on him he moaned.  Shit, fuck, shit, fuck.  He leapt out of bed and winced in pain as various parts of his body protested.  He felt horrible.  Dirty, sticky, and definitely in pain. Oh and better not forget the fact that he felt like a whore.

More images from last night as he dragged his clothes on.

_"You're mine, you slut, you whore.  My whore, mine!"_

It had hurt so much!  As he grabbed his jumper he noticed the blood on the sheets.  There was no up yet as he made his way through the silent air to his own room.  Real feeling and emotion weren't happening.  Seamus was dead.  He felt disgusting.  He had lost his virginity to Colin Creevey of all fucking people.  Severus obviously didn't give a shit about him after all.

He needed a very long bath. 

There was an eagle owl perched on his desk.  It was looking at him with a distinctly Snape like expression.  It held out one aloof claw with a long roll of parchment in it.

The writing should be in red.  That was the only time he had seen his name written in that handwriting before.  In red.  Snape's red ink.

Oh God.

He couldn't deal with that now.  The man had been so, so cruel…

Too much to deal with.

In the bath he cleaned himself up feeling, sick.  It served him right if he caught something off Creevey.

When he was wrapped up in a dressing gown and lying on the bed, in a way that put no weight at all on his arse, he opened Snape's letter…

Dear Harry,

I appreciate you bothering to read this at all after my behaviour tonight.  Whether it will convince you of anything other than your good fortune to be rid of me is debatable.

The first question is why am I bothering to send it at all?  That is not a straightforward question, neither is the answer.  The trigger is probably whisky and Dumbledore's persuasion.  He decided to point out to me that since you have made the effort to try 'to get to know me' I should allow you some success.  

There is also the fact that when I thought I had a matter of minutes to live a few months ago, I swore to change my life.  Something I have failed miserably to do. 

I think the other reason is that I am aware that I behaved inconsiderately, irrationally and with a large amount of cruelty tonight.  That is something I regret.  You are something I will always regret if this letter can not bring you home.

I am going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, what seems like a hundred years ago, there was a sixteen year old boy.  He shall be referred to as the protagonist because there is nothing heroic about any of his conduct.  

So, our protagonist came from a childhood much like yours, although I will not attempt to judge whether you or he suffered more, there is no way of measuring these things.  

Our protagonist reached the age of sixteen angry about many things, this is not exceptional, what adolescent isn't angry?  What was different was part of his anger stemmed from his confusion over his attraction to men.  One man in particular.  He was called Mathew Goldstein and he was beautiful.  Beautiful, intelligent, funny…  He was everything our protagonist thought was perfection, desirable, and completely out of his league.  They slept in the same room, worked in the same lessons, played pranks on your father and his friends, but in all that time our protagonist did not believe for a second that Mathew would look his way.

And then one day, in their fifth year, he did.  And so began the romance.  It was fairly difficult, they had their share of being mocked, but they were Slytherins, and did not let little things like other people's opinions get in the way of what they wanted.  And all they wanted was each other.

Mathew, being beautiful, had his fair share of experience before, but our protagonist had not.  And very soon after making love for the first time, he decided that Mathew would be the person he was going to spend his entire life with.

Mathew agreed.  I cannot tell you the joy they felt, sitting on top of Slytherin tower, and promising that nothing, nothing save death itself would come between them.

Trust me, that is very ironic.

I presume you have guessed the identity of our protagonist by now, Harry?

At this time our world was consumed by a war.  But from your knowledge of Black's experiences you must know it was not a straight forward war.  Hindsight has drawn clear lines, but at the time all was confusion.  Of course the majority of people condemned Voldemort, but they were also scared of what the ministry were becoming.  They hated the excesses, the police state that was developing.  They refused to stand with them, not through cowardice as many suggest, but through principle.     

And into this mad, seething world a group of students graduated.  Mathew and I were now officially engaged.  While most of my family didn't care, didn't want to know, his were amazing.  They were welcoming, loving and held out their arms to me in a way my mother never had.

I do not know if you would believe the depths of my self-loathing before Mathew entered my life.  He danced through it, changed it, brought it to life, brought him to life.  It was a love that scorched the past clean.

I only exist because my mother was raped Harry.  Mathew loved me despite this.  You cannot know how this made me worship him.

One August day, two months before their wedding, Mathew, and his family and I, sat in a café in Diagon Alley and planned wedding things.  I was bored.  Of course I appreciated their fuss, but I didn't care for it.  I was watching Mathew's little brother, Tony, who he was only four, playing in the street outside.  The last thing I can remember before it happened was Mariel, Mathew's mother, saying,

"…But Paisley drapes would match the cake so well…"

And then the world exploded.  None of us had noticed the group of Aurors on the other side of the street hassling a couple of people.  They were trying to persuade them to come with them, the people were refusing.  It somehow turned into a fight.  Hexes, curses, flying everywhere.  Somehow Tony had disappeared, we looked round frantically for him, and then Mathew spotted him.  Without thinking he ran straight into the melee and sheltered Tony.  He was hit by a curse from an auror's wand.

I still don't know for sure what the curse was, but it took him two days to die.

My love, the centre of my world was ripped out of me.  First of all I just felt numbness, then it turned to anger.  Three innocent bystanders and one auror died that day, and the ministry wouldn't even apologise.  The accidents of war they said.  

Oddly enough Mad Eye Moody was involved, he was the leader of the little troupe who started the trouble, but wasn't actually with them.  He blamed himself.  He was the only ministry official who acted with genuine feeling towards myself and the Goldstein family.  That is why Crouch's behaviour in your fourth year hurt me so much.  While I knew Moody did not trust me, I had hoped he did not completely despise me.  Anyway that is another story.

With this degree of hurt, anger and, there is no denying it, a fascination for darkness and power, I was a very easy target for the Death Eaters.

After six months I went to Dumbledore.  That too is another story.

So I became a spy.  To stay alive I needed total, unblinking, unyielding control.

For two years, from the age of nineteen to twenty one I managed with my tradition coping mechanism, self abuse.  I had been doing this since the age of fourteen, I don't any more, it isn't an issue, but it has left me looking a bit of a mess.

Anyway, then I found this wasn't enough.  I actually committed worse acts as a spy, as I worked my way up the ladder, than I did before.  Oh the wonderful irony! 

I took to using whores and casual sex in nightclubs.  

Yes you read that right.

It was for the physical release, and weight of my shoulders.  I made sure I never even knew the fake names they gave themselves.

I'm only alive because of this Harry.

I obviously could not associate this with what I had done with Mathew.  I divorced the two in my mind, sex became unpleasant and sordid.  Love was elevated to a romantic ideal.  I know this is wrong, but there you are.

And now it is too late to reconnect the two.  Or was before you came along.  I have not been physically capable of taking a lover since this terrible period, but there is something about you that I cannot ignore and cannot push away.

I ask you for time Harry.  One day, if you choose to stay, I won't push you away from my bed.  But I need time.

I can not beg, but I can ask, stay.

S 

Harry read the letter through then rolled over and stared at the ceiling.

Shit.

Fuck.

Shit.

He had just made a huge, huge mistake.  In fact huge was probably a relative understatement compared to what he had just done.  Would Colin keep quiet?  He had been reluctant last night until Colin had promised it would only be one night, that it would just be two hurt, lonely people comforting one another for one night.  That he wasn't really interested in Harry at all.

Some fucking comfort.

Oh God.  He had to make sure he didn't tell a soul, Severus couldn't find out!

Harry rapidly pulled on his clothes, fingers catching and slipping on buttons and zips he was completely panicked.  Of all the stupid, stupid things to do!  He ran out of his room and ran into Hermione who was just about to knock on his door.

"Harry?"  Her skin was white, and her eyes were red and shadowed.

"Are you alright?"  Through the panic he forced himself to reach out and touch her arm.

She shook her head and said,

"Are you?  I knew we shouldn't have let you run off last night, but it was so…  I was up all night with Lavender.  You look terrible."

"I'm fine.  How's Lavender?"

"Asleep.  Madam Pomfrey gave her dreamless sleep potion eventually."

Harry nodded blankly and walked down the stairs.  He banged into people and didn't feel it, people spoke to him and he didn't hear it.  He just searched for Creevey's sandy brown head in the crowds of people flocking through the corridors. But he was nowhere to be seen!

Harry reached the Great Hall with his stomach in knots.  Twisting, curling, nausea inducing knots, that were starting to feel like a lump of a lead lying inside him.  And then he saw Creevey.  And Snape.

Snape glanced towards him, and then went back to his conversation with Flitwick.  But Creevey leapt up too eagerly and practically ran towards him.  Harry backed away, but couldn't move fast enough, and then the boy's arms were round his neck and he was being pulled into a kiss.  He pushed Colin violently away, and he could hear the boy's feet skidding on the stones of the silent hall.

He looked up towards the staff table.  Snape had frozen.  His face was completely unreadable.  Harry tried to shake his head and say something, even though Snape probably wouldn't even hear him at this distance.  But no words would come out of his mouth.

"Harry?  Harry, what is it, what about last night?  Why are you looking at me like that love?"

"I…"

"What's wrong Harry?"

He held out his hands to prevent Colin coming any closer and tried to walk around him.  He saw the evil grins on the Slytherin's faces.  He saw the dead, shuttered look on Snape's face.  He'd just killed something.

"Colin stop!  Stop now!"

"Harry, why are you being like this?"

Harry heard the sound of a chair being thrown violently back and he saw Snape stand up and stalk out of the room.

"No!"  He hadn't realised he could talk.  He took a few more steps, but then Colin flung himself on him again and he tried to struggle out of the boy's grip.

"Look, we need to talk, somewhere else, not here, Colin, okay?  Okay?"

And then they were pulled apart.  Harry looked up into Remus's amber eyes and gulped.  Remus' deadpan expression could rival Snape's.  He was wearing a look that said very clearly he was refraining from saying anything, that right now he was showing restraint, but do not expect that to last.

"None of that in the hall boys, you'll put us off our food.  Harry can I speak to you at lunch please?"

Harry just nodded and stared hopelessly up at the door Snape had just walked out of.

Severus Snape stood in front of the sink and opened the box.  It was black leather lined with dark silk, impressive, expensive, a birthday present from Lucius years ago…  The knife inside was steel, with a handle made from leather and silver.  It was set with emeralds.  Slytherin green.

He rolled up his sleeve and stared at his arm.  It was twisted with scars.  All old, oh, how it felt, like nothing else…  He traced them with his fingertips.

How could he?  How could he?  How could he read that letter and then, then go with Creevey!  Creevey!  He was going to tear that brat's throat out.  Obviously what Harry Potter wanted, Harry Potter got, at the expense of everything else.  When had it ever been different?

He was going to scream if he didn't do something.

He rested the knife against a clear patch of skin.  

He could cut down.  Watch the slit in the skin for a moment before the blood welled up in the gash.  Watch the blood slide down the skin and into the white basin.  Feel a relief from the pressure inside him.  It would all be alright again.  His head would clear again.  Things would be back to normal again.

He read the inscription from Lucius.

"For my brother on his eighteenth birthday.  LM."

A very twisted sign of affection.  What would his idea of a wedding present have been?

He could cut down.

And it would all start again.  The cycle he had worked so hard to get himself out of, worked so hard to be free of.  It would all start again.  

He picked up the knife and twisted it in the candle light.  Beautiful craftsmanship, brought so Snape could destroy the craftsmanship of his body.

No.  No. No. No.  Not for some brat, not for the Potter boy who had been offered something and chucked it away.  Not for him.  He wouldn't stoop so low.

He put the knife back and snapped the case shut.  It clicked and echoed around the room.

"Severus?"

He spun round, Dumbledore was standing in the doorway, worry etched onto his face.

"I was putting it away," he waved the case madly in the air, "I was putting it back."

"Good."  The old man breathed out and walked into the bathroom.  He came and stood by Severus and ran a finger across the scars on his arm.  Snape flinched right back and snapped his arm away.

"I'm sorry child."

"I'm not."

Snape shoved the case back in the bathroom cabinet.

"I'm surprised you've kept that."

"Oh I have to keep it Albus."

He tried not to lean into the other man's embrace, as he felt the old wizard wrap an arm round his shoulders.          

"Why?"

"Because I need to know its there.  I was beginning to let myself hope…"

"What?"

"That I may have found a way to get rid of it."

Dumbledore tightened his grip on Severus' shoulders.  They stood in silent staring at the sink that could have been filled with blood.

Harry hurt.  Physically hurt.  He seemed numb to the very core of him.  He still kept expecting Seamus to come round the corner, to hear his voice, and he kept remembering things he was supposed to tell him.  And then he would remember. 

He had been blasted out by Remus, who had eventually finished shouting at him with a comment that "it might be fixable."  After knocking on Snape's door every night for a week he had given up.

The rain poured down the windows.  The sky was crying, even though Harry was past accessing any emotion well enough to manage that.  The grounds had turned themselves to mud.  He didn't care.  Quidditch was cancelled due to the gales.  He didn't care.  He didn't care at all.  He couldn't help staring pleading at Snape during class, but that only seemed to make the man angrier.  He got detention virtually every lesson, but it was always set with Filch.  He didn't care.  Creevey was virtually stalking him, leaving little messages, flowers, presents…  They went right over his head.  He heard how Snape was treating Creevey with a hatred bordering on violence.  That brought a twisted smile to his lips, but it didn't touch the numb core inside of him.

After three weeks he was dragged into Dumbledore's office to be asked why his marks had dropped so badly.  He just shrugged and explained how he really didn't care anymore.  Dumbledore had tried to talk to him, but he just stared vacantly at the rain.

"What's happened?  What the hell has happened to him?  Let me in!"

Harry had rushed to the hospital wing as soon as the rumour about Snape being knocked unconscious had reached him.

Dumbledore stared at him.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea Harry."

"I have to see him!  Is he okay?  Is he alright?  Tell me he's going to be alright!  Please!"

He grabbed hold of the old wizard's robes. 

"He's going to be fine Harry.  By pure fluke one of the sixth years managed to create a potion that stuns all who inhale it.  Several of your fellow Gryffindors were also affected.  They are all alright, it is just unfortunate."

"Please can I see him."

"The potion is an odd one.  Someone under its influence can hear everything those around them say."

Harry turned around to see Remus coming out of a side room.  

"He will not be able to react in anyway though."

Dumbledore glanced up at Remus who shrugged.

"If I have to put up with his temper for one more week I'm going to stun him myself."

"So this is what you look like asleep."  Harry stared over Snape's sleeping face.  Or not actually sleeping, but still.

"So I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen because you have no choice.  Oh I'm being rude already.

"I'm sorry Severus.  So very, very sorry.  But I swear I didn't get your letter until the morning when I left Colin's room. 

"And you were cruel.  So cruel!  I needed you and you flung me out, even though I understand now, I think, I still… It hurt at the time.

"One night doing something that would make me feel like a human being again.  I was so numb, still am, I can't feel anything.  I miss you though…

"It hurt.  I think it was everything you were trying to make sure didn't happen to me, judging by your letter.  I feel like a whore.

"That letter meant so much to me.  In a sort of clinical way, as I said I can't feel anything.  Although I am shocked.

"Shocked by all of it.  I'm so sorry Severus…"

He trailed off here, completely unable to find words to express just how sorry he was, how hurt he was, how much he missed the unmoving, blank man in the bed.

"Actually you're too still to be sleeping.  I wish you'd move, or blink, or something…"

"I've run out of words now.  I have none left to say just how much, how sorry…"

He got up then and hovered by the bed, his fingers millimetres away from Snape's face, but not daring to touch him.  He could kiss him, because he'd never get the chance again.  But it would be an invasion, something he couldn't do because he didn't have Severus's permission.

"Goodbye."

He rushed quickly out of the room.

On the bed Snape listened to his rapid footsteps and the door slamming shut.

When Harry knocked on Snape's door a few days later it opened.  

Things were not how they were.  They didn't touch, and the atmosphere was tense, but it slowly began to ease.  They relaxed around each other after a few days.  They didn't talk about Snape's letter, or Creevey's campaign, which was beginning to frighten Harry slightly.  They talked about irrelevant things.  Or they just sat and watched the fire.

Harry began to feel himself unwinding inside.  Some of the numbness began to ease, but in its place he found himself jumping at shadows and choking back tears.

December the fourth was Seamus's birthday.

Snape pushed a glass of wine towards Harry when he came that evening.  

"How are you?"

"It's like a morgue up there.  It's even worse because Lavender and Dean had a fight.  I don't know what about.  Dean thinks we should hold an Irish wake for him.  All us should get screaming drunk and then sob our guts out."

"That may not be a bad idea, but do it at the weekend please.  I couldn't cope with a classroom full of hungover Gryffindors."

"I couldn't cope in potions with a hangover!"

Snape smiled slightly and motioned for Harry to join him on the sofa.  Harry did so nervously and curled up in the opposite corner to the other man. 

"There's no one to fight."

"I know."

"No one to blame.  I mean the driver wasn't even breaking the speed limit, there's no one to blame!"

"I know."

Harry buried his head in his hands.

"People assume I know how to cope with death, because of my parents, but I don't.  I don't remember them!  Its not bereavement really is it?"

Snape watched him out of lowered eyelids and then gently stretched out his arm.  He rubbed Harry's shoulder slowly, and then harder as he felt the muscles tense.  Toned shoulders.  He felt his breath hitch.

Harry turned his face up towards him.

Snape knew that if he said a single word it would come out as a reflex bark of disgust, so he let his fingers trail up the man's neck, up to his face.  Harry breathed in quickly and moved across the sofa so he was perched in the middle.  He didn't look like he could decide whether to run or just pounce on Snape.  It didn't help that Snape had no clue which of those he wanted either.

Harry leaned over and gently touched Snape's face.  Snape forced himself to stay there, to not flinch.  Harry smiled and moved forward again so Snape's arms were wrapped all the way round him, but their bodies still weren't touching.  Snape felt Harry's hands tangle in his hair.

The younger man slid forward again so they were pressed up against each other.  Snape could smell him, that intoxicating smell, and feel the strong muscles in his back, and his pounding heart.  Then lips gently brushed his, and he opened his mouth.

They kissed gently, far more gently than before.  Both incredibly cautious and treating the other like they were made of glass.  Two such fragile people.  Snape curled his fingers through the Harry's soft hair.  Oh so soft, and the kiss grew needier, and hotter and he hear Harry making little moaning noises, and he was crushing the other man against him now, because there was no pulling back…

But then Harry did pull away.  He was breathing very heavily and his face was flushed.

"I, um, think I need to stop now, if you realise what I mean?"

The blush that spread over his face made Snape want to laugh, but he choked it back.  He couldn't help his eyes trailing to the front of Harry's trousers, and the man blushed even deeper as Snape smiled at the bulge.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise."

He pulled Harry back into his arms, so he was lying back against him.  They looked at each other and then Harry just turned and buried his face in Snape's shoulder and murmured,

"That look!" 

Snape didn't smile, but something in his eyes softened as he played with Harry's hair.  The fire was very warm, and Snape felt almost sleepy as he closed his eyes and sunk into the physical feeling of the warm body in his arms.

"What did he look like?"

"Who?"

"Mathew."

Snape stopped playing with Harry's hair and groaned.

"Do we have to talk about it?"

"No."

"Good."

They stayed quiet for a bit longer, and then he felt lips slowly grazing his neck, his cheeks, his eyes, and then finally his lips.  The kiss built up so the heat smouldered inside them.  This time when Harry tried to pull away Snape clutched him close and kissed him harder, so their teeth clashed and their tongues tangled and Harry was rubbing himself against Snape's leg.  

Snape pulled back and began to suck, kiss and bite Harry's neck.  He revelled in the little whimpers the touch produced and grinned as the flesh turned red.  The man in his arms shifted and twisted, his eye lashes fluttering, and he tasted salty, warm…  Tasted young and alive.

He began to pull the buttons at the top of Harry's shirt open and slid it over his shoulder so part of his chest was exposed.  Harry hissed at the air on his skin and moaned softly,

"I don't mind, I don't need you to…"

"I think you do."

And he wanted to.  The realisation hit him like a ton of bricks. He wanted to make this gorgeous skin shine with sweat and ache to be touched.  It wasn't a junkies' grey, or tattooed and skinny, but it was firm, hard, and begging to be touched…

He ran his fingers over the skin he dared expose, drawing out little moans from Harry, that grew louder and breathless as he dropped his hand to the erection straining against the man's trousers.

"Oh, yes, oh, please…"

"What did I tell you about begging?"

"I trust you!"

Snape actually stopped then and stared in disbelief at Harry.

"Don't stop!  Unless you want to…"  Unfocused, foggy eyes peered up at him through the glasses.

He just shook his head and kissed the hot, hungry mouth as he worked the zip undone and eased Harry's cock out of his boxers.

Nice, very nice.  He allowed himself a small smile at the anxiety on Harry's face, and began to rub the leaking fluid over the head.  Harry moaned and buried his head back in Snape's shoulder, his hands clutching desperately to the older wizard's robes.

He began to move his hand over Harry's cock, stroking harder, than more gently, rhythmically, then erratically, and tried not to grin at the gasping man, who was withering and twisting and moaning and biting at his shirt.

He could feel the heat pouring off him, the salty taste of sweat, the smell of sex and arousal building up as Harry wrenched himself up and clamped his lips against his.  Their tongues fought each other as Harry gasped and trembled, and then his head was falling back and his hips bucked, and he cried out wordlessly and helplessly as spilt all over Snape's hand.

They stayed absolutely still for a moment.  Then Harry groaned and slid down onto his chest.

"Amazing."

Yes, Snape thought, but he didn't say anything.  Amazing to see the heat and passion, amazing to see the life pouring out of the man.  Most amazing thing he had ever seen.  And several thousand worlds away from previous, similar experiences.

Harry muttered a cleaning spell, and Snape felt a mild twinge of disgust for the regret he felt.  He shouldn't want his hands coated in the boy's come.  He stiffened in fright as Harry dropped his hand onto the erection he'd been trying to will away.

"Do you want me to?"

"No!"

Too vulnerable.  He couldn't loose himself like that, not yet.  He'd deal with himself when Harry had gone.

After some length of time Harry pulled away and began to do up his clothes.  

"I'm needed up there tonight, I'm not going to run away from them.  They need me."

"I know.  I don't recall giving you any indication I wanted otherwise."

"You never give up do you?"  Harry stood up and smiled.  "Kiss me goodnight?"

"Do I have a choice?"

As he reflected as he wrapped himself around the other man again, he really didn't.

The experience, to Harry's intense disappointment, was not repeated.  Snape seemed horrified with himself, but Harry grinned and bore it.  He wasn't sure exactly what Snape had done that made that so much better than touching himself, but he had done something, and oh God, how he wanted to feel it again!

It was a week before Christmas when Harry ran down to Snape's rooms and saw him talking to an auburn haired woman in the fireplace.  

"I'll send your Christmas present by owl, Severus.  I'm sorry you can't come and stay."

"I really can't, with the current situation."

"Of course.  Maybe Easter!"

"Maybe."

He turned and saw Harry hovering in the doorway.  He nodded briefly and said,

"I have to go now, have a reasonable, or at least not too foul, Christmas."

"A wonderful time to you too Severus."  The woman smiled dryly and disappeared.

"Who was that?"  Harry asked as he threw himself onto the sofa.

"Mathew's mother."

"Really?  Does she look like him?"

"Why are you so obsessed with what he looked like?"

Snape sat down next to him and Harry squirmed up so he had his head in his lap.

"Dunno.  Just am."

"He had auburn hair, like Mariel, and brown eyes.  He was quite tall."

"You could turn bland descriptions into an art form." 

"Fine!"

He stood up and Harry's head smacked into the cushion.

"Ow!"

"That did not hurt Potter.  If you really give a damn come in here."

Snape had flung a door open that led to…  Harry walked over and gulped, his bedroom.  Snape seemed to be searching through his wardrobe.  

"Sit."

There were no chairs, only the bed.  Oh God, he could feel himself beginning to blush…

Snape had found a box an put it on the bed, he sat down next to it and leaned awkwardly against the headboard.

"Oh for God's sake it's a bed!  While it may be a traditional place for conjugal activity, its also for sleeping in, resting on and sitting on when a room has no chairs!  So sit."

Harry did so, aware his face was flaming red.  He suspected Snape was enjoying that.

"Here."

Snape handed him a photograph from the box.  There was a young wizard who looked about seventeen sitting on a wall laughing.  He was incredibly beautiful, very feminine looking actually, with red hair falling in his eyes.  He had great legs that were encased in leather bondage trousers and a smile that would have melted the stoniest heart.  The effect was only slightly ruined by the ripped up t-shirt.  It had a picture of a snake eating a rabbit on it.

"Nice t-shirt."

"It was the seventies."  Snape looked embarrassed and then smiled evilly.  "Black had a pink afro."

"No!"

"And then he became a punk and shaved it all off, apart from these tufts, which he dyed green.  It looked like his head had sprouted mould."

Harry laughed, and the wizard in the photo, perhaps sensing they were mocking Sirus, laughed too.

"He was stunning."

"Yes."  Snape's voice sounded tight.

Harry glanced at the box.  There were two photo albums in the corner, and the rest was debris.  The debris that comes with a relationship.  Concert tickets, restaurant cards, a silver chain, a broken cassette, a dried flower…  Then Harry noticed the saddest thing of all.  A forlorn stack of crisp, white wedding invitations bound up with an elastic band, they had clearly never been sent out.

All that was left of two people's love.  A collection of junk.  Harry felt his throat constrict as he realised that one day he would probably have a box full of junk, the debris of failed love.

"I have no idea why I'm showing you this."

Harry looked up at the voice and Snape picked out a small box.  He opened it and Harry was staring at two silver wedding rings.  They were gleaming and shone like metal can only if its never been worn.

"Oh God, I'm so sorry."

"You weren't even born.  And yes I do find that weird."

"Why don't you wear yours?"

"Because he never had the chance to wear his."

Harry leaned across and placed his hand on Snape's.

"I can't promise not to die."

"As if I hadn't realised that."

"And I can't fill his place, but will you let me create my own?"

Snape couldn't speak then.  He leaned over and brushed Harry's lips with his.  The younger man responded straight away, rolling on top of him and kissing him hungrily.  Snape just held on, he could only ride the kiss.  As they touched and moaned and gasped, the passion rose up again Snape knew exactly what he wanted.

He pushed Harry on his back and pulled his jumper over his head.

"What…?"

But Harry didn't get any further, because Snape was kissing him again, and revelling in the feel of the warm mouth and the skin he was touching.  The chest, nipples, torso, muscles…  All wonderful under his hands, all soft skin stretched over firm muscle.  Beautiful, incredible.  Edible.  Harry began to moan and twist as Snape kissed and licked all over his stomach.  He shuddered and cried out as Snape sucked his nipples, and he rocked his hips against Severus.  

That sent shock waves through Snape, and he slowly started pulling Harry's trousers down, when a hand shot out and gripped his wrist.  

"No, wait, I want to see you!"

"Me?"  Yes you, a voice in his brain sneered.  That's what happens when you make love.  You both get naked.

"I'm really not sure you do want to see me.  I can keep my clothes on, it'll be better that way."

"No it won't."

Harry sat up and began to remove Snape's robes.  When he got to the buttons on his shirt Snape snapped his eyes shut.  No way was he going to watch the horrible expression take hold of Harry's face.  He felt the cotton slid down his back.  He heard Harry gasp.

He couldn't resist opening his eyes, and even though he had been expecting it, he felt stabbed by the look in the green eyes.

Revulsion.  Disgust.  Tears?  What the hell?

"You did this to yourself?"  Harry's voice was trembling.

Snape looked down at the network of scars all over his body.

"Mostly."

"Oh God."

And then he was being pushed back on the bed, and Harry had thrown his arms around him and was crying out,

"Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry!  How could you?  I'll try to help you, I'll never let you feel that again.  I'm here, I'm here, honestly, I'm not leaving.  I'll never leave."

Snape just lay there and held him, feeling completely baffled.  Then he felt hot, wet tears running over his skin and he pushed Harry up.  He took off his glasses and wiped the tears away.

"Why are you crying?"

"Because you must've hated yourself so much!"

There was nothing to say to that.  He rolled on top of Harry and kissed him frantically, his hands moving over all the skin he could find.  Trying to show him that pain, tears, blood, they didn't belong here, they weren't needed here. 

He kissed down to the waistband of Harry's trousers and slowly undid them and pushed them away.  Fuck he smelt, looked, amazing!  It had been a very long time since he had done this, but Harry was fairly inexperienced so he hopefully wouldn't notice.

As he tentatively took the cock in his mouth Harry yelled and bucked his hips completely off the bed.  As he swallowed him and began to suck, he had to hold the thrusting hips down so he didn't choke.

"Oh god, oh yes, yes, Severus, yes, please…"

Should have known the boy was a screamer.  Oh, and how he tasted!  Pulsing and hot and hard in his mouth.  And that salty, sexy taste, and smell that made his blood boil, and he had to rub himself hard against the mattress to relieve his throbbing erection.  And Harry was yanking at his hair, and moaning and twisting and he was so, so close, and the taste got stronger and then…

"Stop!"

"What?"

Snape pulled himself up and stared at Harry.  He was propped up on his elbows and panting, his mouth hanging open, and his whole body was shining with sweat.

"I want to be inside you when it happens."

Snape laughed in relief.  He had had no clue how he was going to ask for that.  

He pulled himself up next to Harry, still lazily stroking the boy's cock.

"You're seventeen, you can manage it twice tonight."

"Will it be okay, if we do it, like that?  I mean I'll try not to hurt you too much!"

Uh oh.

"Why would you hurt me?"  He asked him softly, brushing strands of wet hair out of Harry's eyes.

"Well last time, it hurt so much, for days actually…"

"Did you use any lubricant?"  Well this conversation was certainly dealing with the erection that had been threatening to split through his trousers.  

"Only spit and, you know…"

He was going to kill Creevey.  He was going to rip out his eyeballs and force them down his throat till he choked.  How dare he!

He rolled away from Harry and retrieved a jar from the bedside table.

"This will stop it hurting.  Let me show you."

He slid down between Harry's legs and swallowed him again, but he could feel how nervous the other man was now, the tension bubbling under the skin.

He began caress his opening with a slippery finger.  Harry hissed and shivered, delicious goose pimples spreading all over his skin.  Snape smiled and pushed his finger inside that tight, hot entrance.  He felt the boy shudder, and then he began to yell as Snape massaged the swollen, hungry gland inside him.

"Yes, oh yes, Severus, please, please, doesn't hurt, Oh God…"

And then he thrust and came in Snape's mouth.  And Snape caught the semen and drank it all down, his finger still moving and circling, and his mouth still sucking as Harry pulsed frantically.

When the man lay still Snape moved up next to him.  Harry's eyes were closed tight, and he made a happy murmuring noise.

"Didn't hurt."

Snape smiled.  

"No."

He wrapped his arms around him, and his heart nearly broke as Harry looked up at him and smiled softly.

"You're amazing."

"You're suffering from afterglow."

"So should you."  And Harry moved his hand to Snape's erection.

He knew that this was the moment.  The moment he either left, and never, ever came back.  Condemned himself to entire life alone, or, or…  Or learned how to live again.

"One moment."

He lifted up the box with the mementos of him and Mathew and stared at the photograph one last time.  Then he got out of bed and took it back to the wardrobe. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the photograph.  The likeness of Mathew smiled sweetly, sadly and waved at him.  Waved goodbye.  Snape pressed the picture to his lips, one final time, and closed the box.  He put it back on its shelf.  Then he turned and made his way back to bed.

He got under the covers, shortly followed by Harry, who clasped him against his chest.

Snape just breathed in the smell of the boy, no the man, for a minute, and then lay back.

"Go on then."

He wrapped his arm around Harry's shoulders as the man settled next to him.  He didn't close his eyes as Harry wriggled him out of his trousers, didn't close them as the hand slowly wrapped round him and began to stroke, didn't close them as the heat began to build up and he began to moan.

Oh Harry was good at this.  He felt the warm hand moving and exploring, cupping his balls in a way that made him gasp, and sliding beneath them so his teeth clenched together helplessly.

But he couldn't let himself cry out.  

He tried to keep control as Harry kissed him, tried to keep control as the hand moved faster and harder, tried to keep control as teeth nibbled his sensitive neck.  And yes his nerves were on fire, and yes it was wonderful, and yes it was Harry, but…

He just couldn't let go like this.

Eventually Harry pulled away and looked up.

"What am I doing wrong?"

"Nothing."

"There must be, something…"

He looked at his worried face.  Oh fuck, he was supposed to be the one in command, not the neurotic, scared one!  He could remember feeling like this, this clueless and unsure.  Shit.  He stared at Harry for a moment, and made the last, final decision.

He reached for the jar of lubricant and took Harry's hand.  Then he began to slowly cover his fingers in the cream.

"Like I did to you."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Oh fuck yes!  He had to cry out when the first finger slipped inside him.  And when it brushed over his prostate stars flashed in his eyes.  Oh Merlin yes…  And then the finger moved, and another one slid in, and he felt so stretched and God, his cock was pounding, and he squirmed helplessly because it was too much, but not enough, and yes, yes, yes!  And then Harry pushed in the third finger, and began to move them with more confidence and hunger, and he opened his eyes to see the wide grin splitting his face in two, and he dragged him down for a kiss that short circuited his brain.

He didn't even think as he grabbed the pot again, and began to spread lubricant over Harry's fresh erection.  He wasn't sure if he asked for it, or whether Harry just moved enthusiastically between his legs.  But he felt his cock throb as Harry rubbed against it.

He felt Harry push against him, then reach behind his head for a pillow.  They arranged themselves with the pillow under Snape's arse, and then Harry thrust inside him.

Nothing, nothing, nothing had ever felt better.  He heard Harry crying out as he pushed in,

"Oh god, that's so, so, you're so tight, and hot, and oh god."

They just lay there for a moment, trying to regain control and clinging to each other.

Then Harry began to move.  And if stars had exploded before, it was universes shattering now as the man thrust into him over and over again.  The heat, and passion, and need, rose higher and higher, until all he could feel was his whole body being pounded and taken.  His hands slipped on Harry's skin, and he could hear the frantic gasps being ripped out of Harry's body.  All the sensations were centred on the cock inside him, the man thrusting into him, harder now, harder and faster, and he could feel both of them losing control.  He cried out himself and then Harry grabbed his cock and he yelled out, and felt his balls tightening and his body shuddering and the pleasure was going to break him into a thousand pieces, and he called out for Harry as he came, shuddering and gasping in his arms.  As he sank back down he felt Harry sob out in relief and thrust a few more times before he was filled with hot, wet heat.

They collapsed and wrapped themselves round each other, both far beyond the power of speech.

After a long time Harry raised his head and said,

"I didn't hurt you then?"

"No."  Since when had his voice sounded so thick?

Harry sat up and Snape groaned at the loss of the body in his arms.

"Are you going to make me leave?"

"No!"  He pulled him back down.  "No."  He nuzzled his hair.

"I want to stay here forever."

Then do.  Aloud he said, 

"You better not snore too loudly though.  If you do I may have to rethink."

Harry laughed and then said softly,

"I feel complete you know?  Safe, whole.  I don't think I've ever felt that before."

Snape didn't have the heart to make some cutting comment.  He just pulled the covers back over them, and then Harry slowly fell asleep.  He watched him for as long as he could, not wanting it to end.  But eventually sleep claimed him too.

They slept all through the night, safe and sheltered, home at last.

THE END. 


End file.
